The Press: And Then There Were None

The only English-language newspaper left in Shanghai, of the four
flourishing when the Communists took over, is the British-owned,
99-year-old North China Daily News. Last week the Communists banned
distribution of news by foreign news agencies, left "the Old Lady of
the Bund" with little news to print.

Instead, Editor R. T. Peyton-Griffin ran a story about a minor squabble
between an Englishwoman and a Japanese consul 28 years ago, articles on
Philosopher Lao-tse and Hittite hieroglyphics. But though the paper was
being starved to death, it could not just lie down and die. In a
Page-One box, Peyton-Griffin plaintively announced: "This...